The Hall of the Five Hundred Arhats 五百罗汉堂

I thought the Huayan Hall was the last of the halls we were to visit, however there was yet one more hall which we were to visit. The colorfully named Hall of the Five Hundred Arhats 五百罗汉堂 is true to its name, as it literally houses five hundred arhats. The hall itself is unique because it was shaped like a Buddhist swastika. The five hundred arhats are placed on the arms of the swastika. The statues themselves were impressive as each one of them is unique. They were also made of bronze. Which makes it probably the large collection of bronze sculptures I have ever seen.

At the center of the hall is a small pavillion which houses four Buddhists which signify the four directions. Interestingly, this is probably the tallest bronze sculpture in the world. The entire pavillion including the Buddha statues are made of solid bronze. The hall itself was another reconstruction from the year 1994. We didn’t really go through all of the five hundred arhats since we can’t identify them anyway. It was nonetheless very impressive to see such concentration of bronze sculptures in one place and mind you, there statues were not small.

[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/LingyinTemple.kmz} zoom=19]